The staff of the Wisconsin Examiner won 12 Milwaukee Press Club Awards for Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism in the online category Friday evening.

Editor Ruth Conniff took first place for Best Multi-story Coverage of a Single Feature Topic or Event for her series, Midwest-Mexico Connections on Mexican farmworkers and Wisconsin dairy farmers.

Deputy Editor Erik Gunn won the first place award for Best Long Hard Feature Story for his piece Wisconsin legislators pause to remember former colleague Jonathan Brostoff 

Isiah Holmes took home the first-place gold award in the Best Investigative Story or Series category for How the Milwaukee Investigative Team protects officers when investigating police shootings. 

Top honors went to Baylor Spears for Best Coverage of a Single News Topic or Event for her series about public schools and the struggle over Wisconsin’s budget. Spears also took first place in the Best Short Hard Feature Story category for ‘What is the bar?’: Wisconsin Legislature divided as it passes resolution honoring Charlie Kirk. 

Criminal Justice Fellows Andrew Kennard and Frank Zufall won gold in the Best Public Service Story category for Shredding of legal mail by Wisconsin prisons worries advocates

Conniff also won the second-place silver award for Best Single Editorial, Statement of Editorial Position or Opinion for her column We need a populist, pro-democracy movement, not more gerrymandering, and third place for Best Columnist for her 2025 columns.

Gunn won third place in the Best Short Hard Feature Story category for People with autism and their families find Trump-Kennedy autism message harmful and wrong.

Holmes won the the second-place silver award for Best Long Soft Feature Story for UW psilocybin study gives man second chance after 10-year opioid addiction and the bronze award in the Best Explanatory Story or Series category for Biodiversity in Wisconsin amidst the 6th great mass extinction.

Spears won bronze for her Best Short Soft Feature Story Wisconsin Democrats want to say ‘Bye Bye Baby’ to unfair ticket selling practices  and another bronze award for Best Coverage of a Single News Topic or Event, including Breaking News for a series of stories over five months about the defunding of a Wisconsin veterans housing program, and the conflicting attempts to revive that funding.

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The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents president appointed UW-Superior Chancellor Renée Wachter as the interim president of the UW system on Friday, about a month after firing the previous president. 

Wachter has served as the 10th chancellor of UW-Superior since 2011, making her the longest-serving chancellor in the system. Effective May 18 she will serve as the UW system interim president.

Board President Amy Bogost said in a statement that Wachter “knows our universities, our communities and the challenges and opportunities facing public higher education in Wisconsin.” 

“She has earned the trust and respect of colleagues across the system through steady leadership and a collaborative approach. At a time when continuity, focus, and forward momentum are essential, the Board is confident she understands what must be done to support our universities during this transition,” Bogost said.

Prior to her tenure at UW-Superior, Wachter served as the Dean of the School of Business at Truman State University in Missouri. 

The Board of Regents decision to fire Jay Rothman, who had served as president since 2022, on April 7 came as a surprise and led to criticism from Rothman, who said he wasn’t given a reason for the termination, and from Republican lawmakers. Regents said, however, that they were dissatisfied with Rothman’s leadership, especially as he moved too slowly to act on issues including artificial intelligence, and had communicated their concerns with him during his review process. 

Bogost said that the next president must “bring the courage, discipline, and forward-looking leadership needed to guide the Universities of Wisconsin through one of the most consequential periods in higher education.”

The Board also announced the 25-member Presidential Search Committee that will conduct a nationwide search for the next permanent president. The last time there was a retirement from the position the search for a UW system president lasted for nearly three years. 

The committee will be led by Regent Ashok Rai, and it is expected that a president will be selected later this year.

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The Supreme Court of Virginia on Friday struck down the voter-approved redistricting amendment, upholding a lower court ruling that had declared the measure unconstitutional less than 24 hours after last week’s special election and briefly halted its implementation. State Democrats later said they would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The high court found that the amendment itself was flawed because lawmakers approved the proposal after voting had already started in the 2025 House of Delegates elections, depriving more than 1.3 million Virginians of an opportunity to weigh the issue when choosing their representatives.

Virginia voters back redistricting amendment after months of legal and political battles

The 4-3 ruling leaves the state’s current congressional districts — which give Democrats a 6-5 advantage — in place throughout the 2026 midterm election and the rest of the decade, instead of proposed districts that Democrats believed could produce a 10-1 advantage.  

The decision affirms the ruling by a Tazewell County judge who had blocked the amendment, siding with Republican challengers who argued the General Assembly failed to follow required constitutional procedures. 

In the opinion, the justices said Article XII, Section 1 of Virginia’s constitution requires “an intervening general election” between the legislature’s first and second approvals of a constitutional amendment so voters can evaluate candidates based on their stance on the proposal.

“The purpose of Article XII, Section 1 is to give voters the opportunity to participate in the process of amending their Constitution,” Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote for the majority. “The commonwealth in this case … ended up denying over 1.3 million Virginians their constitutional right to have a voice in the debate over whether their Constitution should be amended.” 

State Sen. Ryan T. McDougle, R-Hanover, the Senate Republican leader and one of the appellees in the case, praised the ruling as a reaffirmation of Virginia’s constitutional process.

“The Supreme Court ruling today affirms what we all know: you cannot violate the Constitution to change the Constitution,” McDougle said in a statement. He added that the decision showed “even the General Assembly must follow the law.”

McDougle called the ruling “not a partisan one — it is a constitutional one” and said “every Virginian wins.”

House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, another appellee, praised the decision as a reaffirmation that constitutional amendment procedures must be strictly followed regardless of political considerations.

“Today’s ruling establishes once again that the Constitution of Virginia means what it says,” Kilgore said in a statement. 

“The rule of law requires that Virginians have an opportunity to review a constitutional amendment before they vote for the House of Delegates in a meaningful way. You cannot violate the constitution to amend the constitution.”

And Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican National Committee, which had filed an amicus brief in the case and brought a similar challenge, accused Democrats of trying to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts for political advantage ahead of the 2026 midterms.

“Democrats just learned that when you try to rig elections, you lose,” Gruters said in a statement. “Today, the Virginia Supreme Court sided with the rule of law and struck down Democrats’ unconstitutional maps.”

Gruters said the RNC had “led the charge in court against this blatant power grab” and accused Democrats of spending “more than $66 million into an effort to lock in control and silence voters.”

Meanwhile, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones criticized the ruling and said the state is still considering its legal options.

“Today the Supreme Court of Virginia has chosen to put politics over the rule of law by issuing a ruling that overturns the April 21 special election on redistricting,” Jones said in a statement. “This decision silences the voices of the millions of Virginians who cast their ballots in every corner of the commonwealth.”

Jones defended the amendment process as “timely, constitutionally-compliant, and legally sound,” and accused the court’s Republican-appointed majority of “contort[ing] the plain language of the Constitution and Code of Virginia.”

He said his office is “evaluating every legal pathway forward to defend the will of the people and protect the integrity of Virginia’s elections.”

By Friday afternoon, state Democrats made a filing asking the high court to delay enforcing its ruling, suggesting they would pursue an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

“Appellants and the Commonwealth intend to file an emergency petition to the Supreme Court of the United States,” the court document read.

But Carl Tobias,  a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond, said an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States would face significant practical and legal obstacles, particularly this late in the court’s term and so close to the 2026 elections.

“It is very late in the SCOTUS term for the U.S. Supreme Court justices to give an appeal a full-dress treatment, and the justices are often reluctant to rule on voting disputes as elections approach,” Tobias said. 

“However, this is an important case, so it may be possible that SCOTUS would entertain an appeal.” He added that the nation’s highest court “may also be reluctant to second guess the interpretation of Virginia’s Constitution by a 4-3 majority of the Virginia Supreme Court justices.”

The court’s decision comes twelve days after justices heard oral arguments in the case, pressing attorneys on whether lawmakers complied with constitutional requirements governing amendments. 

At issue was whether Democrats had lawfully advanced the amendment through the required legislative process before sending it to voters. 

The case focused on disputes over whether there was a valid intervening General Election between legislative approvals, whether the public received the required notice ahead of the November election, and whether the amendment could legally be taken up during a special session initially called to address changes to the state budget. 

During arguments, Justice Wesley G. Russell Jr. questioned both sides closely, probing the limits of legislative authority and whether alleged procedural defects should invalidate the measure already approved by the voters. 

The morning after the hearing, the court denied a request by the Virginia Department of Elections to stay Tazewell County’s April 22 order while it continued to consider the case. 

House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, one of the chief architects of the amendment, said Friday that while he respects the court’s decision, the referendum still reflected the will of millions of Virginians who backed the measure at the ballot box.

“Three million people voted in a free and fair election,” Scott said in a statement. “We gave this decision to the voters — exactly where it belongs — and they spoke loud and clear.” 

He added that supporters would “keep fighting for a democracy where voters — not politicians — have the final say.”

President Donald Trump weighed in on his Truth Social network, calling the ruling a “Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia.”

GOP challenges test limits of amendment process

The lawsuit was filed in October by Republican lawmakers and a member of Virginia’s redistricting commission. Plaintiffs included state Sens. Ryan McDougle of Hanover and Bill Stanley of Franklin, Del. Terry Kilgore of Scott, and Commissioner Virginia Trost Thornton. 

They argued that the legislature overstepped its authority and failed to follow the constitutionally mandated process, which requires amendments to pass the General Assembly twice with an intervening General Election before going to voters. 

Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack C. Hurley agreed in January, ruling that the amendment process was flawed. 

The state appealed, and while the Supreme Court allowed the referendum to proceed ahead of the April 21 vote, it did not immediately resolve the underlying legal questions, setting the stage for a post-election hearing and this week’s decision. 

The case has drawn national attention as both parties look ahead to the 2026 midterms, when control of the U.S. House could come down to a small number of competitive districts. 

Virginia’s attempt to redraw congressional districts outside the normal post-census cycle became part of a broader national push by both parties to revisit House maps ahead of the midterms. The effort gained momentum after Trump encouraged Republican-led states, beginning with Texas, to pursue similar redistricting moves.  

The lower court’s ruling April 22 briefly halted those plans in Virginia.

Hurley found lawmakers exceeded the scope of the special session in which the amendment was first introduced, failed to meet public notice requirements and did not properly satisfy the intervening election requirement. 

Friday’s ruling from the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed that decision, although it remains unclear if the ruling will be viewed as a precedent for two related cases currently moving through the court system, or whether these cases will be taken up separately by the high court.

David Richards, a political science professor at the University of Lynchburg, said the ruling represents both a political blow to Democrats and a broader affirmation that constitutional procedures still matter, regardless of the political stakes involved.

“The Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling today is an obvious setback for the Democrats, but it is also a win for making the state government pay closer attention to the rules,” Richards said. 

“The whole referendum was hastily put together, and this is the result we get — so much time and money wasted in an effort to work around the rules and a districting system that the voters had just approved a few years earlier.” 

He added that while “it may not be the outcome some people wanted,” the court “was right not to give in to pressure and instead soberly look at the process.”

From late-October push to legal showdown

The redistricting battle began on Oct. 27, just days before the Nov. 4 state elections, when Democratic lawmakers introduced a constitutional amendment during a special session of the General Assembly that would allow congressional districts to be redrawn outside of the once-in-a-decade redistricting cycle tied to the census. 

The proposal immediately sparked partisan fights over both the timing of the amendment and Democrats’ push to redraw Virginia’s congressional map ahead of the midterms. 

The House advanced the proposal the next day, and the Senate approved it on Oct. 31 along party lines, pushing it forward as required by the multi-step constitutional process, which required the amendment to pass again in a subsequent session. 

When lawmakers returned to Richmond in January, they approved the legislation a second time, but the measure soon became entangled in legal challenges. 

After Hurley first ruled the amendment invalid, the Supreme Court of Virginia intervened, allowing the referendum to proceed despite the lower court ruling. At the time, justices made clear they were not resolving the broader legal questions, only ensuring that voters would have the opportunity to weigh in. 

The court’s earlier decision to allow the referendum onto the ballot led many legal observers to believe the amendment would likely survive if voters approved it. 

As the legal fight continued, Democrats began outlining what the new congressional districts would look like. A proposed map released in early February that would likely favor them in most of Virginia’s 11 districts.

Republicans escalated their opposition soon after, filing additional legal challenges and seeking to block the vote. A temporary restraining order by the Tazewell County court applied locally, but the Supreme Court again stepped in to stay that order, allowing the referendum to proceed statewide. 

Heated campaigns culminate in close final margin 

The fight over the amendment intensified in the weeks leading up to the vote.

Outside groups backing both sides poured millions of dollars into the campaign in March, flooding voters with ads and mailers. Some of the messaging drew criticism for using civil rights-era imagery.

Civil rights imagery in anti-redistricting mailers draws outrage in Virginia

Both parties expanded outreach efforts as early voting data showed strong turnout in Republican-leaning parts of the state, making the final outcome harder to predict. 

In the final days of the campaign, Gov. Abigail Spanberger ramped up her public support for the amendment while former Gov. Glenn Youngkin urged voters to reject the measure and continued pressing the courts to block the measure. 

Spanberger said Friday she was disappointed by the ruling but emphasized that voters will still ultimately decide the balance of political power in the 2026 midterm elections.

“More than three million Virginians cast their ballots in Virginia’s redistricting referendum, and the majority of Virginia voters voted to push back against a president who said he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress with a temporary and responsive referendum,” Spanberger said in a statement. “They made their voices heard.”

She added that while she disagreed with the court’s decision, her administration’s focus would now shift toward voter participation in the upcoming elections. 

Voters ultimately approved the amendment by roughly three percentage points April 21, before the dispute returned to the Supreme Court. 

With the Supreme Court’s decision now in place, the new congressional maps will not take effect, leaving Virginia’s current districts in place until a previously passed amendment requires the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission to draw new maps following the 2030 census. 

Editor’s note: This is a breaking news story that will be updated as more information becomes available. 

WASHINGTON — The federal student loan system is set to see a dramatic overhaul beginning this summer, and critics warn it likely will make loans more expensive and difficult to obtain for borrowers — driving them to private lenders or altering their plans for higher education.

Among the major changes are new loan limits for graduate and professional students, a restructured repayment system where new borrowers will have only two plans to choose from and the elimination of a key loan program for graduate and professional students that allowed for unlimited borrowing.

The provisions — most of which will take effect July 1 — stem from congressional Republicans’ mega tax and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last year. 

The U.S. Department of Education finalized regulations, published May 1, that implement sweeping changes outlined in the GOP’s “big, beautiful” law. The department received more than 80,000 public comments before the rule was finalized. 

Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said that “at a high level,” the reforms center on “lowering the cost of college, simplifying student loan repayment and restoring accountability to the federal student lending system,” during an April 30 call with reporters regarding the new regulations. 

The average federal student loan debt balance stands at $39,547, according to the Education Data Initiative.

As July 1 approaches, here’s a closer look at some of the biggest changes coming to the federal student loan system: 

Elimination of Grad PLUS 

The Grad PLUS program, which allowed for graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance, will soon be eliminated under the package and unavailable for new borrowers.

“If you are currently borrowing Grad PLUS loans, so you borrowed Grad PLUS loans before July 1, you will be allowed to continue using Grad PLUS until you finish your program, or until three years have expired, basically whichever is sooner,” said Preston Cooper, senior fellow in higher education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.

“Current students are grandfathered in — it will only be new graduate students, as of this fall, after July 1, who will be subject to the new loan limits,” Cooper said. 

New borrowing caps 

The package also sets forth new annual and aggregate loan limits for graduate and professional students, along with parents who take out federal student loans for dependent undergraduate students. 

Graduate student loans will be capped at $20,500 annually, with a $100,000 aggregate limit. 

Parent PLUS borrowers will have an annual cap of $20,000 and an aggregate cap of $65,000 per dependent. 

Professional student loans will have a $50,000 annual limit and an aggregate cap of $200,000. 

The programs that fall within the department’s “professional” category and are subject to that larger loan cap include: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology. 

The department clarified in a fact sheet on the finalized regulations that the “professional” student classifications “do not express a value judgment about the importance of any occupation or field” but instead serve a “loan-administration function.” 

The agency has received immense pushback from groups representing people in fields that do not fall under the department’s definition and will thus be subject to lower annual and lifetime borrowing caps. 

Incoming repayment options 

In another major shift, the regulations replace prior repayment options with two new plans — the Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP, and the Tiered Standard plan — both of which will launch July 1.

RAP is an income-based repayment plan that “waives unpaid interest for borrowers who make on-time payments that do not fully cover accruing interest,” per the department’s fact sheet. 

Balances under the plan will also “decline with each on-time payment, as unpaid interest is fully waived and the Department then reduces principal by an amount equal to the borrower’s payment, up to $50,” per the agency. 

The Tiered Standard plan offers fixed monthly payments, ranging from a 10-year to 25-year period, depending on the outstanding principal balance of the borrower. 

‘A lot more expensive’

“The upshot is that loan repayment is going to get a lot more expensive for almost everyone, and for some people, it’s going to get significantly more expensive, and the transition is also going to be difficult for a lot of people to manage,” Michele Zampini, associate vice president for federal policy and advocacy at the Institute for College Access & Success, told States Newsroom.

Zampini, whose organization aims to advance affordability, accountability and equity in higher education, said she thinks “there will be a lot of students who will have to turn to the private loan market, who otherwise would have been able to cover their costs through the (Grad PLUS) program.”

Victoria Jackson, assistant director of higher education policy at the nonprofit policy and advocacy group EdTrust, said that with the new loan limits and “drastic cuts to aid availability” in the regulations, “you would really hope that it would come with other, more affordable and better forms of financial aid.” 

“And what they’ve done is just created this vacuum that right now can really only be filled with private loans, which are costlier and riskier for students, or students are just not going to go,” Jackson said.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues its efforts to eliminate the Department of Education, including through a series of interagency agreements that transfer several of its responsibilities to other departments. 

Under the most recent agreement, the Treasury Department will take over Education’s responsibility for collecting on defaulted federal student loan debt — the first step in a multiphase process toward Treasury taking on Education’s entire, roughly $1.7 trillion federal student loan portfolio.

Transition to new system

Zampini noted that, when it comes to the incoming student loan regulations, she does not have confidence in the Education Department’s “ability at this moment to successfully manage the transition without a lot of issues, as far as servicing and as far as account tracking and plan enrollment and things like that.” 

Jackson, of EdTrust, said that “by weakening the federal financial aid system, I think there’s a weakening of our higher education system and making it more difficult for low-income students, students of color and other marginalized students to access graduate education.”

She added that “people who complete those degrees tend to have more financial security in the future — they earn more over their lifetimes and, on markers of financial success and opportunity, do better.” 

“I think this is one prong of a plan of undermining our overall higher education system.” 

As former Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan approaches sentencing after being convicted of obstructing federal agents during an immigration arrest last year, attorneys on both sides of the case are battling over whether new precedents around federal statutes should apply to the former Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge. 

The FBI arrested Dugan last year on charges she helped a man who was making a routine appearance in her court evade immigration officers who were waiting for him in the public hallway outside the courtroom. 

Court staff initially noticed the agents and informed Dugan, who approached them and told the agents to go check in with the chief judge. 

While the agents waited to talk to Chief Judge Carl Ashley, Dugan went back to her courtroom and quickly called 30-year-old Mexican-born Eduardo Flores Ruiz and his attorney, set a date for them to come back, and then allowed them to exit the courtroom through a non-public hallway, at the end of which was a door back into the hallway where the agents waited. After going out that door, Flores-Ruiz and his attorney unknowingly rode the elevator down with one of the undercover agents. Flores Ruiz was arrested outside after a brief foot pursuit. 

Dugan was charged with obstructing federal agents and concealing Flores Ruiz. After a trial in December, a federal jury found Dugan guilty of felony obstruction but not guilty of misdemeanor concealment. Dugan’s attorneys highlighted the split verdict and moved for U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman to overturn the conviction. 

In April, Urban Milwaukee reported, Dugan’s legal team filed a motion arguing that a recent U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision changed the precedent governing the legal interpretation of the federal statute under which Dugan was convicted. The decision, in United States v. Hernandez, held that immigration proceedings do not include deportation operations, relevant since Dugan, who resigned shortly after her trial, was convicted of obstructing an immigration “proceeding.” 

Federal prosecutors have countered that the appeals court decision “is neither binding nor persuasive, and it does nothing to call into question this Court’s reasoning.” They argue that the jury instructions crafted by prosecutors and provided to the jury by Judge Adelman over instructions crafted by the defense team were sound. Adelman had previously denied a request from Dugan’s legal team for acquittal and a new trial.

Dugan faces up to five years in prison and $350,000 in fines. Her sentencing is scheduled for June 3. 

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When Katy Dicks’ two children were both in childcare programs, she and her partner would dread sitting down each month to have the hard conversations about which bills would go on their multiple credit cards, the highest with a 20% interest rate, and which they could pay outright. “It’s a constant budgeting game,” Dicks said, although she and her family watch every penny and keep their finances as tight as possible. 

According to Act For Early Years, the global childcare campaign, the major expense that weighed on Katy and her partner each month is what also plagues 70% of American parents: the high cost of childcare. According to Care.com, Katy, 45, and her domestic partner, who live in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, are like parents across the nation for whom care has become an “all-consuming strain.” The same source found that mothers report “significantly higher levels of overwhelm, guilt, and identity loss” than fathers, pressuring many to leave the workforce. In fact, of the 455,000 women who left the workforce in 2025, roughly 42% pointed to caregiving costs as the No. 1 reason. In the past 40 years, cost has been the primary reason for the steepest decline in mothers of young children participating in the workforce. 

Katy, whose children are now ages 7 and 11, works primarily as a Pharmacy Project Coordinator, but she is also a realtor, and a co-owner of a logistics business with her partner. Katy considers herself “blessed” because she found wonderful, regulated childcare nearby for both of her children, and she “felt good with the care my children received.” However, between the full-time home-based care and the preschool for both children, it cost her and her partner between $20,000-$30,000 per year over six years for a total of $167,000. Average annual costs for childcare in Wisconsin range between $13,000 and $18,000. Even working her three jobs, she and her partner still owe $45,000 in credit card debt because of their childcare costs. According to a new study, a two-child family would need to earn $400,000 to make childcare affordable, defined as 7% of income by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an unreachable sum for most families including Katy and her partner.

The reason for the high cost of childcare in the U.S. is primarily due to the fact that early childhood education is not considered a public good. Therefore, with little to no public investment in childcare for everyone, early educators are often entirely reliant upon parents’ private tuition payments to operate their programs. Despite high tuition rates, Wisconsin providers earn, on average, $13.55 per hour, compared to the average hourly wage of $28.44 for Wisconsin workers, with family childcare providers earning $7.46 per hour. 

This changed during the COVID-19 pandemic when the federal government recognized childcare as essential and distributed funds to states to stabilize the childcare workforce. In Wisconsin, $20 million per month was distributed to approximately 5,000 licensed providers, assisting in the retention of 72,000 professionals, and supporting care for over 417,000 children throughout the state through a program called Child Care Counts. While recent research shows that this program was highly effective, the majority of Republican legislators rejected continued funding for the program. Additionally, even though the 2025-2027 budget for the first time included state funds for childcare, that funding ends in June 2026, leaving providers once again on their own to figure out how to continue, or in many cases simply to close their programs. 

Katy also experienced complications during pregnancy and her maternity leave. During her first pregnancy she developed pre-eclampsia and had to be hospitalized and induced. After just three months of maternity leave at partial pay, she said, “It was the hardest day of my life to go back to work. What I needed was 12 months to heal and bond with my baby.” Nonetheless, she felt fortunate that she had childcare in place, had kept her job, and therefore had health insurance to pay all of her medical bills. 

When Katy returned to work, she went to her infant’s child care program every day to breastfeed her baby on her lunch break, to bond with her baby and also because she wasn’t able to pump enough milk to last through the day. When she tried pumping at work, she felt like her male supervisor was always “breathing down my neck,” and pumping twice a day felt like she was “pushing it.” Not long after, her supervisor gave her a performance improvement plan (PIP) for taking time out to pump breast milk.

With her second child, in a new position, Katy developed pre-eclampsia again, and had to be induced, but at this employer, she felt the pressure to quit working more intensely. After she repeatedly brought up the topic of maternity leave with her male supervisor, the company finally agreed to give her three months of unpaid leave. She made a plea for partial pay during her leave, only to be informed by her supervisor that the company would indeed adopt a partially paid maternity leave, but not until after her maternity leave was over. He also told her that she was the first employee he had who was pregnant and required maternity leave. 

The U.S. is the only wealthy nation on Earth that lacks federally mandated, paid maternity leave, even though about three-quarters of mothers are employed. As of January 2026, only 14 states and the District of Columbia had a mandated, paid maternity leave of eight to 12 weeks. Wisconsin does not have mandated, paid maternity leave. 

Katy’s  experiences ultimately drove her to take a leadership position in the Mother Forward chapter in Wisconsin to push for better policies so that mothers are set up for success.

It’s different in Denmark

When Manal Stulgaitis, an American, moved to Denmark to work for the United Nations, she had no idea how the early childhood education system worked. She visited the country  ahead of her family before the move to check out childcare programs. One morning, when she was out for a jog, she stumbled across an enchanting scene. Peering through a tall fence surrounding a huge residential house, she saw children in snowsuits playing on climbing equipment built into the trees and sitting under a structure whittling sticks around a fire. Teachers stood nearby, observing and supporting the children in their explorations. Manal decided to visit the place right away. She found the administrator and teachers welcoming and they quickly determined that they had space, so she was able to enroll her 3-year-old without delay. The center was part of the public early childhood education system, and she remembers it cost approximately $400 per month, and “was absolutely zero stress.” Meanwhile, her 6-year-old attended public school. 

Manal, 51, whose children are now 10 and 13 years old, like all parents in Denmark, was  entitled to a guaranteed childcare slot regardless of income or geographic location. Indeed, Danish law mandates this and ensures that parents pay no more than 25% of the cost of childcare, unless a family’s income is below a certain threshold, in which case it is free. 

As for maternity leave, although it did not apply to Manal since her children were older, the standard in Denmark is a paid shared parental leave that begins four weeks before a mother gives birth and continues for 24 weeks post birth. Another parent can share up to 10 weeks of the leave, and there is additional flexibility depending on the circumstances for a total of 52 weeks. Recent research shows that Denmark’s childcare and paid parental leave policies combined erase 80% of what’s called “the motherhood penalty” for working mothers, allowing them to pursue their careers and passions. This is certainly the case for Manal, who said, “I don’t think there are words to describe how it impacts you individually or how it impacts our family. To have the essentials like healthcare and childcare and education taken care of by the state – both financially and in terms of the regulatory aspects — gives every single Danish person a huge measure of confidence. We were so lucky to experience that system, which serves children and their parents so well.” 

Policymakers in the U.S. have chosen a hands-off approach to childcare and maternity leave. This has had the effect of normalizing the suffering new mothers and parents experience, pressures mothers to leave the workforce, stalls their careers, and loads parents with debt. Denmark, on the other hand, has chosen to promote equality for mothers by mandating and investing in both paid parental leave and childcare. For Manal, the impact of having her daughter welcomed and supported in a high-quality early childhood education system was “a lifesaver.” She could be a  mother and have a high-powered career that demanded long days and frequent travel. Total confidence in her child’s program meant that she or her husband could “drop the kids off in the morning and not have a second thought about their safety or their wellbeing.” Having a high-quality system freed both her and her husband to focus fully on their work, without all the stress parents in the U.S. feel over their children’s well-being and the toll having a baby takes on their household  finances. Childcare advocates in the U.S. say policymakers here could choose policies that set mothers up for success, rather than test their grit, tolerance for debt, and willingness to endure the pain of worrying whether their children are getting good care. 

Across the country, citizens demanding universal child care in their own  communities are joining the thousands of mothers, child care providers, and advocates gathering on Monday, May 11, 2026 for the 5th annual Day Without Child Care.

Support for this reporting came from the Better Life Lab at New America.

The Atwood Music Hall in Madison was packed Wednesday afternoon, as community members said goodbye to Stuart Dymzarov, the founding principal of Malcolm Shabazz City High School and, for many, many people, a beloved mentor and friend.

Colleagues and former students at Shabazz, the alternative school launched in 1971 with a grant from the Ford Foundation, remembered Stuart’s fierce advocacy for his vision of an open-minded, flexible school. “Education by any means necessary,” was his riff on the famous slogan of the school’s namesake, Malcolm X.

Hearing the eulogies for Stuart, a big bear of a man with a wild beard, radical politics and a radiant warmth, brought back the optimism and high spirits of a generation of Madisonians who protested the war in Vietnam, rejected careerist striving and established their own little cooperative communities in the idealistic belief that they were on the cusp of changing the world for the better. 

One of those starry-eyed idealists was my mother, Dorothy Conniff, who lived in a collective household with Stuart and a dozen other young radicals on Spaight Street on Madison’s East Side. She was in her 20s then and I was just a toddler. “We supported each other’s projects and ideals and had intense discussions about how to change the world,” my mom wrote in the online guest book for Stuart’s memorial. I remember a single check she kept in a scrapbook from the joint household account of those days, with 14 names in the upper lefthand corner — a testament to the trust and cooperation in that happy group. 

Like a lot of young people in the heady 1960s and 1970s in Madison, my mom, Stuart and their whole cohort felt progress over injustice and violence was underway and the world would soon be a brighter place.  “We were optimistic because the antiwar movement had forced Lyndon Johnson out of office,” my mom told me. A lot of former Madison radicals were in the white-haired crowd at the memorial service, including former Mayor Paul Soglin, former Alderman Billy Feitlinger and Jeff Feinblatt, one of the Shabazz teachers who, inspired by Stuart, nurtured and inspired a new generation of young people.

I remember Stuart as a big, benign presence in striped overalls, hoisting the kids in the Spaight Street household on his shoulders and rumbling around the house. Later he became a devoted father to his own three children with his wife of 50 years, Marsha (the two combined their last names, Dym and Zarov) and a beloved uncle, grandfather and father figure to hundreds of Shabazz students. 

Stuart’s nephew Miles Kietzer gave a touching tribute to the uncle who used to pick him up along with his sister after school and take them wherever they wanted to go, buying them treats and letting them fritter away his money on plastic trinkets with an easy-going smile.

Stuart’s brother Harvey described how Stuart would spend endless hours hanging out and having conversations with people, and when Harvey quizzed him on what they had said and what he had learned, he shrugged it off. “I like experiencing people,” he told Harvey. That acceptance and enjoyment of people with no particular goal in mind was classic Stuart.

Stuart was always willing to give people rides, day and night, including, according to one of his younger relatives, on a memorable night when he called Stuart from a biker bar where he was having a drug-induced attack of paranoia. Stuart drove across town in the middle of the night, appeared in the doorway of the bar, a looming presence in a khaki jacket and driving cap, wrapped his younger relative in a hug and took him home.

The feeling of safety and love he gave people is the strongest, lasting impression Stuart left.

He was a fighter — against the “fascist” politics he despised in the U.S. government, even before the current era, and on behalf of people he felt were not given a fair shake. His friends remember his ferociousness on the basketball court, his relentlessness in political arguments, and his tireless, aggressive advocacy at school board meetings and the superintendent’s office on behalf of the staff and students at Shabazz.

But mostly, Stuart made people feel cared for, appreciated, heard. It seems to me that quality is exactly what we need right now, to counter the epic cruelty, hatred and greed that is engulfing our nation and the world.

The sunny optimism of the 1960s counterculture seems far away today. But Stuart’s legacy lives on, not just at the still-thriving alternative high school he founded (where the family encourages people to make a donation to the scholarship program in his name), but also in the light he brought into the world by really seeing other people, accepting and loving them. Experiencing that quality in Stuart in small ways, one on one, is what made such a difference for people. More than any grand political program or analysis, it is a powerful antidote to despair. 

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The publisher of the Cap Times said Thursday that the news organization’s management will voluntarily recognize the eight-member newsroom staff’s union. 

The employees formally announced their union campaign in a meeting with Publisher Paul Fanlund and other Cap Times managers a week ago. They have affiliated with the NewsGuild-CWA, which also represents employees at Wisconsin Watch and at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

“The Capital Times Co. has decided to voluntarily recognize the labor union being formed by Capital Times reporters and we hope to work towards an amicable outcome,” Fanlund said in a statement Thursday. “In the meantime, we will continue the excellent reporting and opinion journalism that the community has come to depend upon.”

The Capital Times newspaper was founded in 1917 by William T. Evjue and throughout its history has been known in Madison as a staunch voice for liberal and progressive values, including its support for labor unions.

Since 2008, what was once a daily evening newspaper has published online with a weekly print tabloid edition. While retaining its original name as a business entity, the newspaper adopted its longstanding nickname among readers as its moniker.

In making their case for a union, the employees primarily focused on the paper’s progressive heritage as well as their interest in greater involvement in its operation.

“I’m proud of all the work we put into forming a union,” said Erin Gretzinger, the K-12 reporter at the Cap Times. “Management’s decision to voluntarily recognize us aligns with the Cap Times’ longstanding values, and it is reflective of our value to the newsroom and the broader Madison community. I look forward to the next steps in this process and working collaboratively to ensure a strong future for our newsroom.”

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s trade agenda faced another major setback Thursday when the U.S. Court of International Trade handed a win to two small businesses and the state of Washington after they challenged the president’s 10% global tariffs, imposed after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his previous emergency tariff regime.

In a 2-1 decision, the court granted a permanent injunction to a Florida-based toy manufacturer and a New York-based spice importer that sued the Trump administration in March, alleging the new tariffs would harm their businesses.

The court also granted relief to Washington state, which was among nearly two dozen states that sued over the tariffs. 

Tariff ‘bazooka’

Jay Foreman, CEO of toy company Basic Fun!, said he was “extremely excited” upon learning the decision.

“It takes a lot of guts and chutzpah for small companies like us and Burlap and Barrel to put ourselves out on the line to fight what we feel is injustice and unfair,” he said during a virtual press conference, referring to the other company named in the lawsuit, an online spice retailer.

“Certainly, there’s a place for tariffs on strategic products that make sense to protect in this country …  but in cases across the board, to approach this situation with a bazooka instead of a fine-tooth comb makes no sense, and it hurts companies like ours, hurts companies like Burlap and Barrel, hurts the consumer,” Foreman said Thursday evening. 

Basic Fun! is behind popular toys, including Tonka Trucks and Care Bears.

Foreman said he expects imports that were subject to the tariffs to arrive as soon as tomorrow.

“I’m already emailing my customs broker to make sure they’re on it,” he said.

The ruling only applies to the plaintiffs Basic Fun! and the online spice retailer Burlap and Barrel, and does not give universal relief to all businesses that must pay the blanket 10% tax on imports. 

Jeffrey Schwab, who argued the case on behalf of the clients for the Liberty Justice Center, said the nonprofit advocacy law firm has been “wrestling” with what the decision means for other businesses that are paying the import tax.

“It’s not entirely clear, and probably will depend on what happens now if the government appeals. If the government seeks a stay that could have an effect. Certainly, I think companies will probably want to file (legal challenges), being concerned about making sure that the tariffs stop for them, and possibly ensuring that they get a refund too,” Schwab said.

Win for Washington state

The ruling also applies to Washington state as an importer subject to the tariffs, according to the ruling. 

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown called the ruling “a win for both affordability and the rule of law.”

“It’s American consumers and businesses that have ultimately paid for the president’s illegal tariff campaign,” he said in a statement. “The court’s order will encourage more parties to challenge this illegal executive overreach.”

The judges ruled other states that sued did not have standing because they were “non-importers.” Among them were Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Trump ordered the fresh round of tariffs on Feb. 20, the same day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a 6-3 opinion, that his initial global tariffs under the 1977 International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA, exceeded his presidential authority.

Following the Supreme Court loss, Trump’s alternative tariffs, imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, went into effect on Feb. 24.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is now in the legally mandated process of refunding businesses and importers who paid a collective $166 billion in IEEPA tariffs. 

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

A new report forecasts that changes to Medicaid enacted in 2025 will cut $7 billion from the program in Wisconsin alone over the next 10 years, according to the advocacy group Protect Our Care.

Calculations last year from KFF, a nonprofit, nonpartisan healthcare policy and news organization, indicate that at least 57,000 more people in Wisconsin will become uninsured by 2034.

“Wisconsinites and people everywhere have either lost coverage or they’re living with the ongoing fear of not knowing whether or not they’ll have health coverage in the next month,” said state Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) in a media call conducted Thursday by Protect Our Care.

The organization has issued a new report on the impact on Medicaid across the country from the 2025 tax cut and spending bill that passed with only Republican votes and was signed by President Donald Trump July 4. The legislation’s tax cuts primarily went to the wealthiest Americans, said Protect Our Care’s Joe Zepecki.

“Every single state in the United States is going to see these cuts and it’s going to have all kinds of consequences,” said U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee), who also took part in the call Thursday.

The legislation included new requirements for some Medicaid recipients to prove they are working or are exempt from a work requirement. It also included requirements that those recipients submit paperwork showing they qualify for Medicaid twice a year instead of once a year.

Those requirements will take effect in 2027. The work-reporting requirements, however, have been broadly criticized by healthcare experts.

“We have also consistently seen in our research and everybody’s research that work requirement policies often do not meaningfully increase employment or access to inclusive, competitive employment,” said Dr. Kiley McLean, a social work professor, researcher and advocate for people with disabilities.

“Instead, they create paperwork barriers that cause eligible people to lose coverage, not because they are ineligible because but because the system becomes too difficult for them to navigate,” McLean said.

McLean said she has heard from people with disabilities and their families who are concerned that they could lose access to Medicaid for healthcare and personal care in their homes and communities.

“For decades, disability advocates like myself have fought to move away from unnecessary institutionalization and toward community living and inclusion,” she said. “Medicaid is what made that possible.”

States can apply waivers to cover those home and community based services — referred to as HCBS for short. But while federal law requires Medicaid coverage for people in institutions, it’s optional for home and community-based care, McLean said.

“That means when states face budget pressure or major Medicaid cuts, community services, HCBS services are among the first at risk,” McLean said.

Another call participant, Dr. Chris Ford, said he has seen the consequences on the job as an emergency room specialist in Milwaukee.

“When access to primary care disappears, when those clinics close, and when people lose that insurance, the emergency department becomes a safety net for an entire — albeit collapsing — system,” Ford said. “We are already seeing the warning signs happening now.”

Ford said he’s seen longer wait times in the emergency room, more patients who, lacking insurance, are “delaying care until they’re critically ill.”

“These cuts disproportionately hurt the very people  who already face the greatest barriers to care to begin with,” Ford said. “This is not something that is a potential. This is something that is happening already.”

This report has been updated.

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All three members of the Public Service Commission criticized the lack of transparency from Meta and Alliant Energy during a meeting Thursday in which the body approved a contract for the social media giant to obtain power for its planned data center in Beaver Dam. 

Meta is in the process of spending more than $1 billion to construct a hyperscale data center campus that, when completed, would use six to eight times more power than the city of Beaver Dam’s current energy load. 

Like similar massive data center projects across the state, Meta’s Beaver Dam project has drawn opposition from local residents. For months, the project was shrouded in secrecy with Meta operating under the name Degas LLC. Opponents have complained about the lack of openness, the massive use of energy and the impact the construction and operation of the center could have on the community. 

PSC Chair Summer Strand said in her opening remarks she didn’t understand “why it needed to be this difficult” to achieve a transparent process. 

“To me, transparency is not a cliche, feel good, bare minimum, check the box concept,” Strand said. “If there’s one takeaway from our discussion and decisions today I want it to be clear that, whether you’re a large load customer coming into Wisconsin for the first time, or regulated entity familiar with our process, transparency — and by that I mean actual and real transparency — is the foundational expectation and a necessity.”

Commissioner Kristy Nieto said in her opening remarks Thursday morning that the case is one of the “most consequential” decisions the PSC has seen. 

“It bears repeating, existing Wisconsin customers should not pay a single cent to subsidize the service of data centers, not now and not decades from now,” Nieto said. “This means these very large customers must bear the full cost of the infrastructure required to serve them — generation, transmission and distribution — and that those costs must be fully and transparently assigned.” 

The three members of the commission lamented the redactions that had initially been made to the documents submitted in the case — which were later removed after objections from outside parties including members of the public, Clean Wisconsin and the Citizens Utility Board. 

The commissioners also decided that moving forward, hyperscale data centers constructed within Alliant’s territory must pay for and receive energy through a standardized tariff, rather than a one-off contract negotiated without public scrutiny. Late last month, the PSC made a similar ruling for large customers in WE Energies territory. 

Under the PSC order, Alliant will have to develop a tariff that applies for any data centers using more than 100 megawatts of energy. The Meta campus is expected to use 220 megawatts. 

“This is not going to be the last data center contract we see from this utility, and I will say Alliant needs standard guidelines and rules for its data center customers,” Nieto said. “A clear public tariff would create consistent, transparent rates and rules for future data centers, instead of handling each one through separate, confidential negotiations.”

While Alliant was ordered to develop a tariff rate for large customers, the PSC on Thursday approved the contract negotiated between Meta and Alliant with some modifications meant to insulate regular customers from bearing the costs of Meta’s energy use and any related infrastructure upgrades by Alliant. Nieto said denying the agreement while the tariff rate is developed would have allowed Meta to operate for up to a year without any guardrails, an outcome she said didn’t think would benefit anyone.

Brett Korte, a staff attorney with Clean Wisconsin, said the PSC putting a halt to the development of a case-by-case patchwork of data center energy deals in Alliant’s territory — which covers parts of more than a dozen Wisconsin counties — will protect Wisconsinites.

“Tariffs create a consistent, transparent framework that helps protect the public interest,” Korte said in a statement. “Without them, Wisconsin risks a patchwork system where costs and responsibilities are unclear and potentially shifted onto other utility customers.”

After the meeting, consumer advocacy and environmental groups were complimentary of the PSC’s actions.

“Today, the Public Service Commission highlighted the importance of transparency and oversight: accountability is a must, and it cannot be bypassed,” Britnie Remer, organizing director of climate advocacy group 350 Wisconsin. “The Commission also recognized that protecting Wisconsinites from subsidizing billion-dollar data centers needs to be front and center when it comes to these massive projects. With more data center proposals inevitable, requiring tariff filings in the future will ensure large energy customers pay for their costs, not our families and small businesses.”

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Republican Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek) announced she will not run for reelection this year, creating another open seat in an Assembly district that will be decisive in determining partisan control of the chamber in 2027.

Rodriguez, 48, has represented the 21st Assembly District since 2013 when she was first elected in a special election. She noted in her announcement that her son was 3 years old when she first ran. During her time in office she has served on the powerful Joint Finance Committee, helping shape the state’s two-year budget as well as being an outspoken advocate for school choice.

“Throughout my time in office, I have tried to keep family first. But the truth is, it is difficult to do this job well without it affecting the people who care about you most. My family has given me patience, encouragement, and support through long days, busy weeks, and many moments when this work required more of me than they deserved to lose,” Rodriguez said in a Thursday statement. “After a great deal of reflection and many conversations with my family, I have decided that I will not seek reelection this fall.

Her district changed with the new maps adopted in 2024. It sits in Milwaukee County and includes Oak Creek and a portion of the city of Milwaukee around the Mitchell International Airport, and has a slight Democratic lean, according to the Marquette Law School analysis. 

Even under the new maps, Rodriguez won her most recent term in 2024 with 51.3% of the vote against her Democratic challenger. 

Her departure means that Republicans will lose the advantages that come with incumbency in a key district that will determine control of the state Assembly. Republican lawmakers currently hold 54 seats in the Assembly to Democrats’ 45 seats, meaning Democrats need to hold all their seats and win five additional seats in November to win the majority. 

Morgan Hess, the executive director for the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee, said in a statement that “Rodriguez, like others in the Republican Assembly caucus, sees the writing on the wall.” 

“Rather than serve in the minority, they are calling it quits. Democrats have the momentum to win the majority this fall and today’s announcement brings us one step closer,” Hess said. 

Democrat Dan Bukiewicz, the mayor of Oak Creek, announced his campaign for the seat in January.

Hess said he is a “proven leader in this community and will make an excellent state representative.”

Rodriguez’s announcement adds to the wave of Republicans, including nine Assembly members and six Senate members, deciding not to seek election this fall, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) who was the first Assembly Republican in one of eight key seats to decide against running. 

Donovan running

Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) announced that he will run for a third term to represent Assembly District 61, which covers Greendale and Hales Corner in Milwaukee County. The district has a slight  Republican lean, according to the Marquette Law School analysis, but is one of eight districts that Democrats are targeting to flip. 

Donovan, 69, was first elected in 2022. He joins a handful of other Republican lawmakers from swing districts  seeking another term, including Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston), Rep. Shannon Zimmerman (R-River Falls), Rep. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville) and Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R- De Pere). 

Democrat Ben Brist, a U.S. Army veteran announced he would run for the seat in March. His candidacy could mean Donovan would face someone other than Democrat LuAnn Bird, who he defeated in his first two runs for the Assembly. 

Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Devin Remiker said in a statement that Republicans are “abandoning ship.” 

“To those like Bob Donovan and Shannon Zimmerman who have decided to run again, you have 23 days to retire or you will be fired by the voters in November. Your leaders and colleagues know what is coming and it is not the cavalry; it is only defeat,” Remiker said.

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Three weeks after two right-wing groups demanded the repeal of a professional licensing board’s ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ clients of social workers and other therapists, Gov. Tony Evers sent a sharply worded reply.

In a Tuesday letter to the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and Wisconsin Family Action, Evers declared, “my administration has no intention of repealing Wisconsin’s conversion therapy ban.”

Evers asserted that the April 14 demand letter from the two groups was based on “a significant misreading” of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that threw parts of a Colorado ban on conversion therapy into question. 

Evers wrote that it was “disappointing” that the organizations support “a long-disavowed and outdated practice” that extensive research has shown to be ineffective and responsible for harms including depression, suicide, substance misuse, posttraumatic stress and anxiety.

“On the other hand, this should come as no surprise,” Evers wrote. “After all, bullying LGBTQ kids and Wisconsinites seems to be an important goal for Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and Wisconsin Family Action.”

Purported to dissuade people from same-sex attractions and from gender dysphoria — which the American Psychiatric Association has defined as  “psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity” — conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy, has been widely discredited.

Conversion therapy is not limited to talk therapy. “Aversive techniques used in reparative therapies have included electric shock, physical violence, administration of emetics, and personal degradation and humiliation,” the American Academy of Nursing wrote in a 2015 statement opposing the practice.

The Wisconsin Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Counseling, and Social Work Examining Board published an updated professional code in April 2024 that declared “any intervention or method” used or promoted to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity to be “unprofessional conduct” that could subject a practitioner to professional discipline.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a March 31 ruling, sent a lawsuit challenging a Colorado law against conversion therapy back to lower federal courts. The ruling instructed the lower courts to apply “strict scrutiny” on First Amendment grounds to the Colorado law because it seeks to “regulate speech based on viewpoint.”

In their demand letter, WILL and Wisconsin Family Action called on the Evers administration to repeal the ban in the Wisconsin therapists’ code. The letter declared that it was similar to the Colorado law and claimed that “the Supreme Court held that Colorado’s substantively identical statute was unconstitutional.”

Evers wrote that the demand “relies on a significant misreading of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision” and had “erroneously” characterized its findings. 

“First, the Court intentionally — and specifically — stopped short of striking down any applications of Colorado’s law,” Evers wrote. The high court instead remanded the case to the lower court to apply a “more searching scrutiny” to the law, he added. “Repeal before that occurs would be premature.”

Evers also wrote that the ruling “expressly held that heightened scrutiny applies only to certain applications of Colorado’s law, not the entire provision. Specifically, the case concerned only Colorado’s conversion therapy prohibition as it applied to talk therapy — not to other treatment, such as physical or medication interventions.”

Quoting the Court’s ruling, Evers wrote that the Colorado plaintiff, therapist Kaley Chiles, stated that “the statute has many valid applications. Indeed, [she] did not take issue with Colorado’s effort to ban what she herself calls ‘long-abandoned, aversive’ physical interventions. Instead, Ms. Chiles objected to Colorado’s law only as it applies to her talk therapy, therapy that involves no physical interventions or medications, only the spoken word.”

Wisconsin’s professional rule also covers more than talk therapy, Evers wrote, and the therapy, counseling and social work board “will maintain the rule and continue to enforce its valid applications, in order to protect Wisconsinites from harmful and offensive practices by Board licensees.”

WILL’s initial response Thursday to a request for comment was a two-word email message from WILL Deputy Counsel Rebecca Furdek: “Lawsuit incoming.”

In a follow up statement, Furdek said that Evers was “resorting to personal, baseless attacks on WILL and its mission.” Contrary to the distinctions Evers made about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the statement reiterated WILL’s characterization that the Court found Colorado’s “substantively identical law amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.”

Making no reference to other conversion therapy tactics, the statement concluded: “Government shouldn’t be deciding which viewpoints are ‘acceptable’ for Christian counselors to express when providing talk therapy to the individuals who voluntarily seek out faith-based counseling.”

In his letter, Evers wrote that because the Colorado case remains active in lower federal courts, the Department of Safety and Professional Services will attach a note to the conversion therapy rule stating that “certain instances of the unprofessional conduct” it refers to “are the subject of ongoing litigation.”

Wisconsin’s conversion therapy ban was enacted after several previous attempts were blocked by the Legislature’s Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules. A Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling in July 2025 found that state laws the committee’s Republican majority used to review and suspend administrative rules were unconstitutional and encroached on the examining board’s legal authority.

Marc Herstand, executive director of the National Association of Social Workers Wisconsin chapter, praised Evers’ letter Thursday. The association was among the groups that urged the counseling board to add conversion therapy to practices considered unprofessional conduct. 

Wisconsin state law “clearly gives professions the authority to establish their own Conduct Code as the social work profession, along with the marriage and family therapy and professional counseling professions,  have done in classifying Conversion Therapy as unprofessional conduct,” Herstand said in an email message. 

“I applaud Governor Evers for his recognition of the severe harm that Conversion Therapy inflicts on LGBTQ children and his commitment to retain the ban on Conversion Therapy [in the professional code] to the maximum extent possible.”

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Tribal governing board members of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northwest Wisconsin voted to make May 5 the Tribal Day of Awareness of missing and murdered indigenous women and relatives (MMIW/R) and authorized the creation of the Bad River MMIW/R Task Force on April 22.

All 11 federally recognized Wisconsin tribes participate in the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s MMIW/R Task Force, but Bad River is creating its own tribal task force. On Tuesday, more than 50 members of the Bad River community participated in an annual MMIW/R Awareness walk. They followed a route inside the reservation marked by posters and red dresses (one of the visual symbols of the MMIW/R movement) displayed on hangers hung from garden stakes.

The annual Bad River MMIW/R walk is one of several across North America to raise awareness of the violence, especially murder and disappearance, affecting indigenous people.

Bad River Chair Liz Arbuckle and several members of the task force participated in the Tuesday walk and discussed the newly formed task force.

“When I became chair, this was something I wanted to prioritize,” said Arbuckle. “Violence against our people, particularly women, is catastrophic. It’s a crisis, and we know every tribal community has been affected by it, both on rez and off rez, and so this is a good way for us to educate people about the issue.”

She said the task force has three main goals:

• Education, outreach, and prevention.
• Creating response teams and response plans.
• Preparing for the possibility that the Canadian energy company Enbridge will bring a large workforce for the Line 5 pipeline reroute to the area, creating what has been termed “man camps,” a concentration of male pipeline workers in rural areas, especially tribal areas.

Bad River and environmental groups are challenging the 41-mile Line 5 reroute around the reservation in court, but Arbuckle said the tribe must prepare as if the project will proceed.

“We’ve seen in other communities when there are large groups of men in camps, especially outside of Native reservations, the statistics show that it can be a really dangerous place, because some of these guys have a lot of money and these girls get caught up in that, or people get caught up in that and bad things can happen,” she said, “So we want to make sure we educate people about that and prepare them to make good decisions for themselves.”

A 2021 Guardian article, “Sexual violence along pipeline route follows Indigenous women,” reported that crisis centers noted more than 40 reports of workers on Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement in northern Minnesota were alleged to have harassed and assaulted women and girls. 

In that same article, Michael Barnes, an Enbridge spokesperson, said the corporation has “zero tolerance for illegal behavior by anyone associated with our company or its projects,” and the article also noted the corporation fired two workers charged with sexual/human trafficking.

Another, larger objective of the task force, said Arbuckle, is to create dialogue among local, state and federal agencies to share information and work cooperatively across jurisdiction lines, which is often difficult  when tribal lands are involved.

The task force includes members of social services, legal, public health and law enforcement agencies.

“I thought this is a great group that has different skills and different programs to come after it from different angles,” said Arbuckle.

If there is a crisis or emergency, such as a disappearance, all the preparation and forethought from the task force, said Arbuckle,  will have at least put the tribe in a better position to respond.

“We shouldn’t just start from scratch if someone goes missing,” she said. “We should have a plan. We should know the people. We should have a good relationship with the police or the sheriff.”

Theresa Morris, a community health manager, is a member of the task force, whose goal is to educate members about man camps and encourage members to travel in pairs and to let others know their whereabouts and plans.

Gina Jensen, a health worker who represents the tribe’s police commission, noted one of her motivations for being on the task force is that the murder rate for indigenous women is 10 times the national average.

Aurora Conley, one of the tribal governing board members who voted to approve the task force, said its creation signals the tribe is paying attention and is committed to being proactive and prepared, including networking and working with other tribes, communities and the state.

“I thought it was a beautiful thing, definitely,” Coley said of the task force’s creation, “and to let our community members know that those that have gone missing or murdered in the past have not been forgotten.”

Conley said as a parent of two Indigenous children she feels an obligation to make them aware that they are at higher risk.

“I have a small daughter, and it’s a different sense of awareness that we have to create … it better prepares our children and our communities,” she said.

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The day after the U.S. Supreme Court crippled the federal Voting Rights Act, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson addressed a virtual gathering for the group’s members and supporters where he ranked the landmark decision alongside the court’s most infamous cases.

Dred Scott excluded Black people from American citizenship ahead of the Civil War. Plessy blessed policies of racial segregation in 1896. And now there was Callais. 

The opinion will “probably go down in the history book as one of three of the worst Supreme Court decisions in the history of this nation,” Johnson said.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana vs. Callais on April 29 cleared states to split apart, for political gain, congressional districts where a majority of residents belong to minority groups. The court’s conservative majority said Louisiana lawmakers acted unconstitutionally when they intentionally created the state’s second majority-Black district, which the justices found unnecessary.

A week after its release, the decision is roiling politics across the South as states move at a rapid pace to recast the political landscape that has taken progressives by surprise. 

Republicans, triumphant over their victory at the court, are rushing fresh gerrymanders through Southern statehouses in time for the November midterm elections in an effort to strengthen their party’s control over the region’s U.S. House delegations. They’re acting at lightning speed, over loud protests, and have nullified votes by suspending ongoing elections.

Democrats, especially Black residents, are furious with both the court and GOP politicians, who they believe are poised to wipe away decades of Black political progress in the region. The new maps that seek to oust Black members of Congress and prevent the election of Democrats in the future recall a Jim Crow past of literacy tests and poll taxes, they say.

“We refuse to let you kill us by killing our vote,” Eliza Jane Franklin, a resident of rural Barbour County, Alabama, told a state House hearing Tuesday.

Decision kicked off legislative efforts

The Alabama Legislature is moving to authorize a special primary election using a congressional map currently blocked in federal court, if a district court or, ultimately, the Supreme Court allows the state to move forward. At least one of the state’s two Black members of the U.S. House would be vulnerable.

In Louisiana, the governor has suspended the state’s primary elections for the U.S. House, setting aside some 42,000 votes that were already cast. Republican lawmakers will begin advancing a new gerrymander in a matter of days, aiming to force out at least one of the state’s two Black House members.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new map into law Monday that aims to hand his party up to four additional U.S. House seats. State lawmakers approved the map hours after the Supreme Court’s decision. The map has already drawn multiple legal challenges.

The South Carolina Legislature is weighing whether to redraw maps. And Tennessee lawmakers want to gerrymander a Memphis district currently held by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a white Democrat who represents the state’s only majority-Black district. 

“The Supreme Court has opined that redistricting, like the judicial system, should be color-blind,” Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, said in a statement Thursday unveiling a plan to divide the Memphis area among three congressional seats.

More states, in the South and elsewhere, are expected to pursue new maps over the next two years. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp ruled out a special session this year, for example, but supports redistricting before the 2028 election. 

The current moment represents an extraordinary time in America, said Rebekah Caruthers, president and CEO of Fair Elections Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group. But she also called it a reversion “back to America.”

Many thought the presence of Black, Hispanic and Asian American elected officials somehow meant racial discrimination no longer existed, she said.

“And unfortunately, that is a misread of American history,” Caruthers said. “And perhaps it is a retelling of American history for those who want to gloss over America’s very sordid past, especially when it comes to voting rights.”

Midterms impact

The scramble by a handful of Southern states to redraw districts comes as Republicans grasp for any scintilla of advantage ahead of the midterm elections in November. 

A U.S. House under Democratic control would spell the end of much of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, produce a wave of investigations into his administration and potentially lead to a vote to impeach him in the House, though the Senate would almost certainly acquit him.

“This is all about Donald Trump wanting to avoid hard questions and oversight hearings about his actions,” Cohen said at a news conference in Memphis.

Seth McKee, a political science professor at Oklahoma State University who has studied Southern politics, said Republicans are attempting to “staunch the bleeding” ahead of unfavorable midterm elections.

“The desperation of this Republican Party, it’s off the charts,” McKee said.

Redistricting push supercharged

Prior to Callais, Trump had already urged Republicans to redraw congressional maps for partisan advantage — a process that typically occurs once a decade after the census. 

Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas enacted more GOP-friendly maps, while Democrats struck back in California and Virginia. In Utah, Republicans want to block a court-ordered map that’s more favorable to Democrats.

Republican primary voters have given their approval to that approach. On Tuesday, five Trump-endorsed state legislative candidates in Indiana defeated GOP incumbents who had defied the president to block a gerrymander in the state last year.

But until now the Voting Rights Act limited how far that gerrymandering push could extend.

For decades, Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act helped protect majority-minority districts from gerrymandering and ensured voters could elect Black candidates to Congress in Southern states following the end of state laws that blocked Black citizens from voting. The Callais opinion guts Section 2 by curtailing the consideration of race when drawing legislative maps.

Republicans have praised the decision and many have been clear that they believe the opinion opens up a path to securing additional GOP seats. Trump has endorsed disregarding primary elections that have already been held so that states can pass new maps — which he predicts can net Republicans an additional 20 seats this fall.

“We cannot allow there to be an Election that is conducted unconstitutionally simply for the ‘convenience’ of State Legislatures,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If they have to vote twice, so be it.”

Calls for GOP seats

Over the past week, some Republicans have cast majority-minority districts previously protected by the Voting Rights Act as racist because they were drawn with attention paid to the racial makeup of the map. U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, wrote on X that there are “no more excuses for keeping racist maps,” for example, and called for their immediate removal.

Other GOP leaders have centered their case for quick action on political power. Like Trump, they have explicitly invoked control of the U.S. House as a reason to gerrymander. While Republicans have the House, their margin of control is razor thin: 217 to 212, with one independent and five vacancies. Even a modest Democratic wave in November will likely sweep away GOP control.

Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger Jr. and House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said in a joint statement that the state’s lawmakers have a responsibility to offer Alabama a “fighting chance” to elect seven Republican U.S. representatives. Two of the state’s seven districts are held by Democrats.

“Control of the U.S. House of Representatives could come down to just a handful of seats, and when the dust settles, the people of Alabama will know that their Legislature stood firm, acted decisively, and did everything within its power to fight for fair representation,” Gudger and Ledbetter said.

Alabama Republicans want to use a map passed by lawmakers in 2023 that federal courts blocked from taking effect. Alabama’s current map was drawn by a court-appointed special master.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, asked a federal district court Tuesday for an order that would let the state move forward with the gerrymander.

In Louisiana, Republicans obtained special permission from the Supreme Court to quickly move forward on a new gerrymander after the justices struck down its current map in the Callais decision.

Absentee voting was already underway in Louisiana before Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended congressional primary elections set for May 16. Votes already cast for U.S. House candidates won’t count, Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry, no relation, has said.

Louisiana state lawmakers are set to begin work on a new map this month that will likely break apart a New Orleans district held by U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Black Democrat who has fought with the governor.

“The Court’s decision in these cases has spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, wrote in a dissent of the decision to quickly finalize Callais.

Court challenges

Still, Democrats and other opponents of the gerrymandering effort across the South are turning to the courts. Lawsuits have also been filed challenging the suspension of Louisiana’s congressional primaries and Florida’s new map also faces court challenges.

A petition filed in Louisiana state court by Elias Law Group, a major Democrat-aligned voting rights litigation firm, alleges the governor’s decision to halt the congressional primary is unlawful and unprecedented. Only the state legislature has the power to set the state’s election schedule, the petition argues.

“Governors do not get to cancel elections by executive fiat, least of all elections that are already underway, with ballots in voters’ hands and votes already cast,” Lali Madduri, a partner at Elias Law Group, said in a statement.

Regardless of how the legal challenges play out, Democrats say the Callais decision and the ongoing fallout from the decision underscore the need for massive voter turnout in the November election. A large Democratic turnout that results in a significant Democratic majority in the U.S. House would serve as a rebuke to Trump’s gerrymandering campaign, they say.

Blue state gerrymanders

U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, South Carolina’s sole congressional Democrat, said during the NAACP virtual meeting that a Democratic House could pass voting rights legislation. 

“I would hope we could do that because I really think that’s our only hope legislatively,” Clyburn said.

Democrats have long called for the passage of a bill to restore preclearance, a major element of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court paused in 2013, which required states and local governments with a history of racial discrimination to obtain federal permission before making voting changes. 

But the measure would face a certain filibuster in the U.S. Senate. Even if Democrats broke a filibuster, Trump would likely veto it. 

In effect, Democrats’ most realistic opportunity to enact major voting rights legislation relies on regaining control of the White House and Congress and ending the filibuster — a set of conditions that’s out of reach until at least 2029.

In the meantime, more Democrats are calling for aggressive gerrymandering of blue states as a way to punch back. U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Joseph Morelle, both New York Democrats, on Monday announced an initiative to encourage their state to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2028 election.

Gerrymandering New York would be an intensive effort, likely requiring voters to repeal or suspend anti-gerrymandering provisions in the state constitution. But voters in California and Virginia have previously endorsed Democratic gerrymanders.

“This is just the beginning,” Jeffries said in a statement. “Across the nation, we will sue, we will redraw and we will win.”

Early last month, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced a deal to add 100 acres to  Devil’s Lake State Park, expanding recreational opportunities at one of the DNR’s most popular properties. The move also calls attention to the dwindling life of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship grant program that made the acquisition possible. 

The nearly 40-year-old stewardship grant program has long been a bipartisan success story, allowing the purchase and protection of hundreds of thousands of acres of land across the state. 

Growing opposition to the program within a subset of the Republicans in control of both chambers of the state Legislature — stemming from a combination of antagonism toward land conservation and concerns about the property tax base of Northwoods communities — stymied multiple legislative efforts to re-authorize the program beyond its set expiration at the end of June. 

The Devil’s Lake purchase marks what could be one of the last major actions of the stewardship grant program, which has allocated more than $1.2 billion to conserve more than 700,000 acres of Wisconsin land over its lifetime. 

The program had about $5.5 million remaining as of early April, according to DNR spokesperson Molly Meister. That money is divided into a number of categories, with $2.9 million earmarked for acquiring general easements — agreements with landowners that conserve and protect the land without transferring ownership — and $1.3 million set aside for general land acquisitions. Another $666,667 is meant for acquiring easements specifically for the Ice Age Trail, plus $8,333 for Ice Age Trail land acquisitions. An additional $600,000 is set aside for acquiring land for county forests. 

Meister told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email that the money set aside for the DNR to acquire land itself is expected to be fully used by the time the program expires, while the money set aside for easements will largely be used, but the exact amount is dependent on the agency finding interested landowners. 

“We are currently negotiating with landowners who have expressed a willing interest in selling their land to the department and anticipate all Stewardship general fee acquisition funds to be encumbered before the end of June,” she said.  Easement acquisitions, Ice Age Trail (both fee and easement), and County Forest acquisition is a similar process, but as you have noted, depends on willing landowners looking to acquire an easement versus an outright purchase in the remaining months. We expect a significant amount, but not all, of these funds will be encumbered before the end of June.”

While the program is set to expire, there are ongoing Knowles-Nelson projects around the state that have already been funded through the grant program yet won’t be completed for a few years. Meister said that program staff will close out those active projects before moving to other jobs within the DNR. The rest of the agency has also faced significant cutbacks in recent decades, due to budget constraints and Republican opposition to environmental protection initiatives. 

“It will take several years to close out currently active projects. Staff will continue to work on finishing up these projects,” Meister said. “After these projects are closed out, DNR staff will continue working on other department priorities. Over the past 20 years, we have lost over 500 FTE positions, so there is always more work to do.”

David Grusznski, the Milwaukee programs director for The Conservation Fund, the land conservation non-profit that facilitated the DNR’s purchase of the Devil’s Lake property, told the Examiner that through the stewardship program, the DNR has often been able to function as the last piece of the funding puzzle for projects that conserve land and provide access to that land for the public. 

“It’s very rare that one pot of money funds an entire acquisition, so money is always being leveraged with other people’s money,” he said. “So without the state stewardship funding being able to bring in a portion of that money, we, a lot of partners, are going to be unable to leverage federal dollars, state, city or county dollars that may be available. And we’re going to have to really rely pretty heavily on private fundraising, which is going to be extremely difficult.”

Now, he said, non-profits and land trusts across the state are coming to terms with the pending loss — which will push planned projects years into the future while putting organizations across the state in direct competition over the same pot of private philanthropy money. 

“I think this is all really just starting to set in with a lot of people across the state,” Grusznski said, “as far as the money is not there — what do we do?”

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A group of former University of Wisconsin officials and one lawmaker said better communication is key to building trust among Wisconsinites and overcoming disinvestment in the university as federal and state funding declines.

“The challenges [the higher education system] faces are on multiple fronts: ideological, financial, social professional,” said Michael Bernard-Donals, president of Public Representation Organization of the Faculty Senate (PROFS) and a professor of English and Jewish Studies at UW-Madison. “Much of the public doesn’t trust higher ed anymore or at least doesn’t think it’s worth the price. Costs have increased. The economy is changing, and the job market is shifting and colleges are a useful political punching bag for populists. The compact between the federal government and the universities… has broken down, maybe irreparably, and all of this has made navigating the internal politics of the institution that much harder.”

A 2025 Gallup poll found that confidence in U.S. two- and four-year higher education institutions was up slightly to 42% from a record low of 36% in the previous two years.

During a Wednesday panel discussion featuring a Democratic state representative as well as two former UW employees, much of the conversation centered around how universities and colleges need to improve their communication with Wisconsinites and their political leaders in order to build investment. 

Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland), who serves on the Assembly Colleges and Universities committee and formerly taught at Northland College, said that it has been “stunning” to her to see the politicization of universities, but it is important that they figure out how to “change the discourse on what higher ed means to the state.”

Stroud said she sees some lawmakers grappling with knowing the importance of higher education when it comes to jobs and economic development, while also making “politically useful” attacks on higher education. 

“Those two things don’t go together very well,” Stroud said. 

In recent years, the relationship between the Republican-led Legislature and the UW system has been marked by disagreements over cutting the system’s budget versus investing in it, debates over DEI and the First Amendment and most recently, the firing of the UW System President Jay Rothman.

Raymond Taffora, emeritus vice chancellor for legal affairs at UW-Madison and former chief legal counsel for Gov. Tommy Thompson, listed the issues that he views as most  affecting higher education including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, the cuts to federal funding that institutions are facing, changes to student visas due to the Trump administration, concerns about freedom of speech and academic freedom and uncertainty over changes in leadership. 

Addressing the recent tumult over the Rothman firing, Taffora questioned “how could the Board of Regents… decide to remove the president of the university and not designate an interim president of the system?” After the firing, the regents announced that Chris Patton, UW’s vice president for university relations, would serve as acting executive-in-charge prior to the appointment of interim president. 

“It’s not the way to lead a university,” Taffora said.

Greg Summers, an employee of the Milwaukee-based marketing agency BVK and emeritus provost at UW-Stevens Point, said part of the challenge for colleges is that while colleges do well communicating internally, communication with the general public could be better.

“Lots of colleges do a really good job communicating with their stakeholders, but that communication is very narrow. It tends to be very transactional in nature,” Summers said. “Institutions like to talk about themselves. They like to talk about recruitment — getting students to enroll at those institutions, because that’s incredibly financially important. They also talk a lot about getting donors to donate to their campuses, but there’s not a lot of conversation as an industry about the public common good that higher ed brings to American life.” 

Summers said the field of higher education needs to come up with a strategy to speak to the American public with one voice. He said that is the goal of his ad agency’s campaign called “Why College Matters.” It is a free public service campaign, he said, that any college and university can use.

“The campaign that we have created we think resonates with exactly the stakeholders that we need to reach: rural Americans, people without college degrees and political conservatives,” Summer said, adding that those groups  have been among the most skeptical of higher education in the last 10 or 15 years. 

Summers said the campaign gets at the idea of communicating better with Americans about why faculty research matters to them.

“Higher ed cannot solve its problems and its trust issues with communication alone. That’s absolutely true, but higher ed has a real communication problem and has to get outside of its usual bubble and usual audience and to talk to people in different ways about the value that they bring to American life,” Summers said. 

Stroud, noting her prior research on concealed carry and her job as a Democratic lawmaker, said she understands how difficult it is to have conversations that don’t become partisan and divisive.

“I’m just a partisan hack now in many people’s minds. They’re just completely dismissive of the evidence on gun violence… It’s going to be challenging to figure out how to enter into these conversations without being seen as being reduced to just partisan hackery,” Stroud said, adding that walking that line is essential for these conversations. 

Taffora said UW faculty and staff could improve on putting their expertise to use out in the state and living out the “Wisconsin Idea.” He brought up Walter Dickey, a faculty member of the University of Wisconsin Law School who also served as the Wisconsin Department of Corrections secretary under former Gov. Tony Earl, as an example.

“There was a time when the University of Wisconsin faculty were not only noted for their expertise, but their expertise was deployed,” Taffora said. “The best way to showcase expertise is… to get busy and to lend your expertise.”

Taffora said the showcasing needs to extend to lawmakers and decision makers and it could be beneficial for the UW system to further expand its lobbying efforts. 

“If that was a private company, you’d have batteries of lobbyists that would descend on the Legislature to tell stories. Interacting with decision-makers is key” Taffora said. “The story is a good one to tell, but it has to be told with facts and it has to be told with a degree of humility, not condescension.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the name of the college that Rep. Angela Stroud taught at. 

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Charlotte Cravins’ son Landry turned 2 in January. He’s a smiley little boy who loves singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and recently got his first pair of glasses.

Landry was born with Down syndrome and has impaired vision. He receives publicly funded therapies that have helped him learn to crawl, to pull himself up to stand, and to use American Sign Language.

Landry lives with his parents and sister in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, one of the eight states whose attorney general has chosen to remain in a lawsuit challenging a federal rule that protects accommodations for people with disabilities. States are asking a federal court in Texas to declare unconstitutional a part of federal law that requires states to provide services to disabled people in their communities, rather than in institutions, when appropriate.

Cravins, an attorney, has followed the case with increasing concern. If the states succeed, that could strip disabled people like her son of the right to publicly funded services that allow them to live in their own homes and neighborhoods, and instead push them into institutions such as state hospitals and nursing homes.

“Landry is a part of our family, a part of the community,” she said, “and to present his involvement in our family and in our community as a burden is unconscionable.”

The lawsuit is unusual. It began in 2024 with 17 Republican-led states suing the Biden administration over its inclusion of gender dysphoria as a protected disability under a portion of federal law known as Section 504. The states also challenged the constitutionality of Section 504 itself.

But the suit has since morphed into something different.

After President Donald Trump was reelected and his administration made clear it would not enforce the Biden rule protecting gender dysphoria, eight states pulled out of the lawsuit. Their attorneys general scrambled to distance themselves from it, amid a swift backlash from the disability community that warned the suit imperiled federal protections for all people with disabilities.

But in a surprising move, nine states chose to stick with the lawsuit anyway, and in January amended their complaint.

They’re now asking the court to strike down a part of Section 504 that requires states to provide disabled people with services in their communities whenever possible, rather than in institutions such as state hospitals and nursing homes.

It’s a maneuver that has shocked many in the disability rights community. Those who spoke with Stateline said they have not received answers from public officials about why the states are still pursuing the lawsuit after the Trump administration removed federal protections for gender dysphoria.

The Republican attorneys general from the states involved either did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment or referred Stateline to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the lawsuit. Paxton did not respond to Stateline’s request for comment.

Last week, a few days after Stateline reached out, Indiana dropped out of the lawsuit, leaving eight states remaining.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, a Republican, said he remains concerned about “federal overreach into traditional state matters” but felt that Trump’s move in December to officially exclude gender dysphoria from Section 504 protections meant the lawsuit’s core objective had been reached.

“Our goal in this lawsuit was to remove President Biden’s ridiculous addition of gender dysphoria as a disability, which risked jeopardizing services for those who truly need them most,” Rokita said in a statement. He noted he has a child with a disability; his son has Angelman syndrome, which causes developmental delays.

But eight other states are pushing forward with the lawsuit: Alaska, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, South Dakota and Texas.

Cravins, Landry’s mom, said she feels misled by Louisiana Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill, because Murrill initially framed the case as being about the inclusion of gender dysphoria and has not responded to questions about why her state remains involved after that’s no longer an issue.

“Other states left the lawsuit. Louisiana didn’t. Why?” Cravins asked. She said she’s written an open letter to Murrill about the case, with no response. “At this point, it seems that her issue is people with disabilities living in the community.”

States say in their revised complaint that updates to Section 504 unfairly restrict how they’re able to spend money and prevent them from deciding how best to care for their own residents. They say their budgets, strained by rising costs and workforce shortages, can’t always accommodate expensive service changes required by the law, and that with smaller Medicaid budgets they’re having to make hard choices. Removing the law’s “integration mandate” would give them more flexibility.

Disability rights advocates respond that if the court strikes down the integration rule, it will be harder for people with disabilities to get services in their communities. States won’t be required to provide those as a condition of receiving federal money.

And they worry the states’ efforts signal a return to darker times, when disabled people were hidden away, warehoused in institutions and far from family and friends.

“The reality is, the world was not built with us in mind, and there are people who would rather us not be here,” said Kaleigh Brendle, an advocate and college student who launched a nonprofit to push back against efforts to defang Section 504. “Us existing in the world makes people uncomfortable, with our braces, our canes, our wheelchairs, our differences.”

Nonpartisan, until recently

For decades, disability issues were largely nonpartisan. The two most consequential landmark federal disability rights laws were signed by Republican presidents: Richard Nixon signed the Rehabilitation Act — which includes Section 504 — in 1973; George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.

The requirement that states provide services for disabled people in their communities comes from the landmark 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. Advocates hailed that decision as a civil rights victory that has helped shift disability care from institutional “warehousing” to integrating disabled people into the fabric of their communities.

“Now the states’ lawsuit seeks to upend all of that,” said M. Geron Gadd, a senior attorney with the National Health Law Program who focuses on disability rights cases.

Gadd said that as a litigator, she’s seen states shift how they fight disability-related cases: Instead of disputing how laws apply in specific situations, states are increasingly challenging the thrust of the laws themselves.

“States seem to be much more offended by having to conform their programs and services to basic requirements of disability law,” said Gadd. And, she added, “it seems to have become politicized in ways that it had not been for decades.”

State efforts have echoed those at the federal level.

The Trump administration has been pushing a rule change that would penalize disabled adults who live with their families and deduct the value of their bedroom from the amount they receive in federal benefits. Last year, Trump administration officials abandoned a proposal to cut disability benefits for older workers after news reports and public outcry. The efforts have been made in the name of government efficiency and reducing red tape, particularly in safety-net programs.

And in April, the U.S. Department of Justice delayed a Biden-era deadline — based on the Americans with Disabilities Act — for state and local governments to update their web content to make it accessible for people with disabilities.

Disability rights advocates say the conservative-led states and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services they are suing feel like two sides of the same coin, with disabled people and their families caught in the middle of the case, without a champion.

‘Something to fight back’

When Kaleigh Brendle was 17, she joined four other vision-impaired high school students in challenging a decision by the College Board — which administers Advanced Placement tests — to replace hard-copy Braille exams with a digital format during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They were successful. Brendle’s experience then, as well as her experiences pushing to get the accommodations she needed in school, drove her to advocate for disability rights nationally.

She named her new advocacy nonprofit Judy’s League, for Judy Heumann, a legendary disability rights activist known as the “Mother of the Disability Rights Movement.” Brendle likes to quote Heumann, who often said that disability can happen to anyone at any time.

Families and students with disabilities also worry the Republican states’ lawsuit could erode Section 504 protections for students if states were no longer required to provide services in public schools and could instead direct students to institutions.

As a student, Brendle received services locally that helped her learn to use a cane, to read Braille and to use accessible technology needed to complete school coursework.

At times she had to push for the accommodations she needed.

“But at least 504 gives you a leg to stand on,” she said. “It gives you something to fight back with.”

Similarly, Cravins worries her son Landry could have a hard time receiving services at his local school when he’s old enough to attend, even though he would be able to go to school with his peers with the right supports.

National disability rights groups — including the National Federation of the Blind, the National Down Syndrome Society and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund — have continued urging the public to speak out about the possible loss of rights.

“It feels like it’s up to us as individuals to try and convince these people in these positions of power to stop attacking us,” Brendle said.

Cascading effects

On Monday, the states asked the judge to decide the lawsuit without a trial. Over the next few months, the states and feds will file briefs with the court. Disability community groups and allies will have the chance to file briefs as well.

If the states prevail, it’s hard to say what the cascading legal impacts could be. A win could trigger further litigation. Other courts might interpret the law differently.

A number of state laws, programs and other efforts have been built on the integration mandate and could be affected as well, said Mike Oxford, a retired director of an independent living center in Topeka, Kansas, who has been a longtime disability rights advocate.

“I’ve seen people with significant disabilities become great lawyers, academics, corporate leaders, on and on,” he said. “That would not have happened” without the integration mandate.

Oxford said he has not gotten a response from Kansas Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach when he asked about the case. He doesn’t think that the attorneys general remaining in the case believe it’s still about gender dysphoria.

“It’s just totally ridiculous,” he said. “They’re lawyers. They signed the new complaint. They know what it does and doesn’t say.”

If the court strikes down the integration mandate, that doesn’t mean the entire law is invalidated or in-community services automatically cease.

But it does mean that if a family were denied services outside of an institution, they’d likely have to pursue litigation each time to fight the decision, Cravins said.

“I think it’s important for the average citizen to realize that laws only work when there is enforcement behind them,” she said.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

A Milwaukee provider of personal care services has been charged with bilking Wisconsin’s Medicaid program of almost $2.2 million, the state Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

Debbie Long, 44, was charged with billing Medicaid for services that didn’t take place, according to the criminal complaint filed Tuesday.

The complaint also charges Long inflated the size of the payroll and workforce at her home health business to obtain a $219,072 loan under the Paycheck Protection Program enacted to help businesses that had to temporarily shut down early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, the complaint alleges she purchased businesses and a luxury car with proceeds, using a series of shell companies to conceal where some of the funds came from.

Long’s business, Pinnacle Home Health Care LLC, submitted reimbursement claims for services purportedly provided to Medicaid members between March 2017 and August 2022, according to the complaint. DOJ investigators reviewing those submissions found at least $2.1 million in Medicaid reimbursements to Pinnacle for services that weren’t performed, the complaint charges.

The complaint says the allegedly fraudulent billings included “impossible or improbable hours of service,” such as a personal care worker who reportedly worked more than 12 hours on a single day for one Medicaid member.

There were also reimbursements for services that were never provided, according to the complaint, for services that were more than workers provided, for services in which the Medicaid member’s need was “misrepresented,” and for services when the Medicaid member was in the hospital or incarcerated — situations in which members weren’t eligible for Medicaid reimbursement.

The investigation included interviews with Medicaid recipients as well as personal care workers employed by the business who helped investigators uncover some of the allegedly false information provided, according to the complaint.

Long is charged with five felony counts: theft by false representation greater than $10,000, fraud against a financial institution greater than $100,000, wire fraud against a financial institution, and two counts of money laundering greater than $100,000.

Court records reviewed Wednesday did not list an attorney for Long.

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The voting rights-focused firm Law Forward filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission Wednesday over the commission’s decision to throw out the spring election votes of 23 Madison voters whose absentee ballots were properly filled out and filed in time, yet were delivered by the city clerk’s office to poll sites after 8 p.m. on Election Day. 

The six-member commission voted last week to order the Dane County Board of Canvass not to count the votes in its certification of the election results because the ballots were delivered minutes after the polls closed April 7. State law allows absentee ballots to be returned until polls close. Ballots can be returned through the mail, to absentee ballot drop boxes located around Madison, to the city clerk’s office or directly to the voter’s polling location. 

The lawsuit, filed in Dane County Circuit Court, argues WEC’s application of the law is unconstitutional because the voters followed all the rules and their ballots were late through “no fault of their own.” 

Madison’s election administration has generated negative headlines several times in the last few years after the city clerk’s office misplaced and failed to count nearly 200 absentee ballots during the 2024 presidential election. The clerk in charge during that election no longer works for the city and the commission has instituted a number of requirements on city election officials to prevent similar errors from happening again. 

Law Forward President Jeff Mandell said in a statement that in this case, WEC is overreaching. He pointed to a long history of Wisconsin court precedent that states voters can’t be disenfranchised over administrative failures of election officials. 

“These voters did everything Wisconsin law asked of them, and the city and county properly counted their ballots,” Mandell said. “Their votes were cast, received, and counted on Election Day. WEC is now trying to erase them from the record because of a clerical error these voters had absolutely no control over. Failing to count these absentee votes will only erode trust in our elections and jeopardize access to voting in future elections. It’s critical that the court take urgent action to ensure these votes are counted.”

No local or state election results will be changed by the 23 votes. The lawsuit must move quickly because state law requires that the results of the state’s April 7 election must be certified by May 15.

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